Circumference Logo
 

Circumference

 
 
    Skip Navigation Links


Issue 6 Cover
 
Issue 6
Sample Poem
Names with asterisks link to bios.
 

diari
i

sottendi il nome in quanto già ti estendi
coerentemente in mùscoli, in parole
di un solidìssimo modus vivendi.

ii

se, viceversa, ai nomi della mente
non riferisco essenze è perché trovo
ardui contesti per i miei strumenti.


iii

benché mi finga, in pectore, realista
constato che mi sfuggi, onde mi scorgo
behaviorista, operazionalista.

iv

dolore degli -ismi, e sua cogenza
diagnosticando tare in cento errori
di una faticosa convergenza.

v

divèrgere nei segni che rivèndichi
per te, per me – e che disattendo:
fallii di amarti ontologicamente.

vi

se in certi giochi manco un referente
oscillo e mi dibatto fra scacco e
fra semàntica – e, vedi, non mi salvo.

vii

ma tu verìssima, fascio di referenti,
forse tu mi addestrasti (e ti ringrazio)
ai segni e alla sintassi di altri enti.

(e qui desisto, e taccio, al che prevengo
usi prolissi: vedi già ti scrissi
ventuno endecasìllabi in due giorni.)


written 200
*Marcello Frixione

Marcello Frixione Marcello Frixione is Associate Professor of Philosophy of Language at the University of Salerno, where he writes and teaches on artificial intelligence. He is the author of two books of poetry, including Ologrammi (2000), from which the sequence in this issue is taken.
 




diaries

i

you subtend your name as you expand
coherently in muscles, in words
of a most solid modus vivendi.

ii

if, inversely, I do not connect essence
to mental names, it is only because I find
difficult contexts with my instruments.

iii

Although I pretend to be, in pectore,
a realist, you escape me, so I now see
behavioralist, operationalist.

iv

grief of the “isms,” and their cogency
diagnosing tares in a hundred errors
of an oppressive convergence.

v

diverging in the symbols you might claim
for you, for me — and that I dismiss:
I err in loving you ontologically.

vi

if in certain games I lack a referent,
I waver, struggling between chaos and
semantics — and see, I am not saved.

vii

but you most true, bundle of referents,
perhaps you have taught me (and I thank you)
the symbols and syntax of other entities.

(and here I leave off, in silence, before
I get prolix: see, I’ve just written you
twenty-one eleven-beat lines in two days.)

translated from Italian by
*Joshua Adams & Joel Calahan
Joshua Adams & Joel Calahan Joshua Adams and Joel Calahan are staff members at the Chicago Review. Their translation of Marcello Frixione’s Holograms is forthcoming from Cracked Slab Books.



Circumference Home About Circumference  Email    Submissions    Subscriptions    Supporters    Events    editors (at) circumferencemag.com